Tidbits 47–What To Feed Your Kids So They Won’t Wind Up Sick, Or Stupid!

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Ya know, folks… there is the real food, and then there’s the fake food–and unfortunately, the fake food is what most of us are eating!

Real food is made by people, fake food is made by corporations! The one made by people is prepared in actual kitchens and keeps us healthy. Here’s a picture of real food. This is The Farmstand, where I do a lot of my shopping.

The other food is made by machines in factories and generally consists of sugar, white flour, salt, artificial colors, artificial flavors, preservatives, an array of drugs, hormones and flavor enhancers and, as you can well imagine, puts your health at risk!

Here’s what I’m not eating:

Now, it’s true, the fake food is very convenient and very delicious; almost addicting! It comes in packages and all you have to do is heat it up! Or you can buy it already cooked at places like McDonalds and Pizza Hut.

The real food takes a lot of time and energy! You have to go shopping in special places, like the farmer’s market or the natural food store, and be really fussy about the choices you make, reading labels, looking for words like “grass-fed”, “pasture raised”, “organic”, “non-GMO” and “whole grain”. You have to cook from scratch on a real stove. It involves chopping and slicing, mixing, measuring and stirring. So many pots and pans to wash! Who has the time for all this?

Well…I do!

And why is that? Because I used to be very sick—practically house-bound—due to all my “conditions”: migraine headaches, agoraphobia, dizziness, anxiety, depression, irregular pulse, panic attacks, sciatica, insomnia…. I know. Unreal! What did I eat? I loved the frozen dinners! I also loved Burger King, McDonalds, Dunkin’ Donuts, and I loved ice cream!!!!!

But I had no life!

So what came to the rescue? The health food store! How did I wind up there? I was looking for vitamin C—I heard it was good for colds. But the vitamin C tablets sold in drug stores were big chalky things that I couldn’t swallow! My cousin Flora told me to go to Au Naturel at 18th and Walnut, (which now that I think about it, is really weird because Flora didn’t live anywhere near 18th and Walnut!) anyway, there I found all shapes and sizes of vitamin C! And the people who worked there were so nice, they gave away free natural health magazines with every purchase–and I read them, of course; and I found out that all my problems had two causes: one was Sugar, and the other was White Flour! And since white flour turns to white sugar in your stomach… it all comes back to just one thing: Sugar!

I know that some of our more alert readers are going to be thinking, “What does sugar have to do with frozen dinners?” Good question! It’s added to all processed food to make it taste better! Read your labels, start reading food labels, OK? And notice that they add sugar to the food more than once under different names so it won’t look like it’s the main ingredient in the food! You’ll see something like this: Sugar, honey, dextrose, corn syrup, brown sugar, fructose, etc. all spread out in the ingredients list so that some other food will be at the top as the main ingredient; but in fact, there is actually more sugar in the food than anything else!

Now, why is this important? Because your kids are sugar addicts! There’s a famous experiment where rats given sugar water actually preferred that to real food! I hear this from parents all the time: “He won’t eat it [real food]. It doesn’t matter if I offer it to him, he won’t eat it; there are only a few things that he will eat.”

You know, studies have actually shown that sugar is addicting; not ALMOST addicting, but really addicting, for a fact! Here, look at this:

“…Dr. Hoebel — who has been studying sugar addiction for 10 years — found that sugar can act on the brain in ways similar to drugs of abuse. Dr. Hoebel’s rats even went into withdrawal symptoms… Their ‘teeth started chattering,’ Dr. Hoebel told me. ‘They waved their heads back and forth. Their forepaws quivered. They acted anxious in a maze test. These are all signs of sugar withdrawal. They weren’t as pronounced as what we see with morphine, but it was withdrawal.’ What happened? Well, Dr. Hoebel thinks that ‘sugar triggered production of the brain’s natural opiates or morphine-like compounds.’ Wait a minute! But the rats didn’t have drugs. They just had sugar!”

So, I really mean it, your kids are addicts! And they’re sick a lot too, aren’t they? They have allergies, asthma, ear infections, repeated colds, they get lots of antibiotics which wind up making them even sicker because the friendly intestinal flora is destroyed by them… and your kids are also either hyper-active or dull, can’t pay attention, and have a variety of behavior problems, am I right? Which means they’re either on Ritalin or Adderall–do you know what those drugs are? Speed! Shall I rattle off the side-effects for you? There’s a lot of heart and bladder symptoms along with others that are too numerous to count; so, I’ll just give you my favorites:

Uncontrollable movements of the tongue, lips, face, arms or legs; insomnia, loss of appetite, anxiety, stomach pains, nausea, vomiting, headache, depression, anger, aggression, fever, sudden death…. and this is just one drug your kids are on! Let’s not forget their anti-histamines, inhalers, antibiotics and all the side-effects that go with these, and you know what? This is an awfully high price to pay just so that you don’t have to cook or find your nearest farmer’s market!

Now I know it’s hard to believe that all this is due to what you’re feeding them, but here’s your choice: keep feeding them fake food, and watch their health and quality of life decline the way my life did, or follow in my footsteps and changeeverything!

I’ve had parents tell me, “I gave my son his biscuit this morning…” and I’m like, “His What?????” And the parent says, “If I don’t give him his biscuit, he has a tantrum!” Well, right, because it’s made of white flour and your son is an addict! I repeatedly have to point out to parents, who think they’re feeding a variety of foods to their children, that they’re actually feeding them nothing but sugar! Sugar actually destroys nutrients, it’s an anti-nutrient, and you need nutrients to be calm, well-mannered and strong. Lack of nutrients leads to bad behavior and disease. There have been studies showing that the more sugar a person consumes, the less active his immune system is:

“According to a 1973 study done by Loma Linda University, when you eat 100 grams of sugar, about as much sugar as you find in a 1 liter bottle of soda, your white blood cells are 40 percent less effective at killing germs. This can cripple your immune system for up to 5 hours after eating sugar!”

So OK, enough bad news, let’s fix this! If your kid needs a biscuit for breakfast, from now on, it’s gotta be a whole-grain biscuit! You can buy multi-grain and whole wheat English Muffins that are delicious!

And now, let’s look at another common breakfast mistake: orange juice! Why is that a mistake, isn’t it supposed to be good for you? Yes, REAL orange juice is good for you; but, that’s not what you’re buying! Think of it as water with something called “flavor packs”! This may come as a surprise, but, you have to hear it: none of the juice for sale in the supermarket is real juice!

I have a juicer, and I can tell you that if you make real juice, you have to drink it right away, because it “separates” and quickly loses its nutritional value. Have you seen what happens to an apple when you cut it open? It turns brown pretty quickly, doesn’t it? That’s the damage caused by oxygen! When you cut raw foods open and expose them to air, they start to go bad. Juice–real juice– must therefore be drunk immediately before the air gets to it! Notice that the “juice” from the supermarket never goes bad, and never separates! What the heck???!!!! What have they done to effect this miracle? Well, the answer is that it’s not juice!

The easiest thing in the world to do is make your own orange juice, so, please do it!

Now, I mentioned a multigrain English Muffin, but what are you going to put on it? “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter”? Margarine? Commercial butter? No to all three! You want butter from grass-fed cows! Look, there are very few real farms left in the United States and we’ve got to support them!

Is this a farm?

Corporations think so! Give me a break!!!!!! This is why I go out of my way to shop at the farmer’s market, Whole Foods, the health food store, etc. because otherwise, you’re just enabling the “people” who think this is a “farm”! What’s going to be the quality of the dairy products from these “places”? Don’t even think about it!

This is a raw milk dairy; specifically, Windy Acres Dairy in Oregon:

Notice that it’s a real farm! More on Raw Milk in a few minutes. But notice that the animals are allowed to graze and eat grass, their natural food.

Now, back to our English Muffin, what else can we put on it? Most kids like jelly, which, as we know, is basically nothing but sugar! So what’s the alternative?

Preserves! Preserves are fruit in jars:

And this reminds me that kids also like peanut butter and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! But now, instead of jelly, you’re going to use the preserves, and the peanut butter, of course, will be real peanut butter, not Peter Pan Peanut Butter or Skippy, because, have you read the ingredients on these jars?

What a disaster! Why are they adding oil and sugar to peanut butter? Do you see why you have to read labels? Here’s a jar of real peanut butter:

Do you know what’s in it? Brace yourself! Peanuts. That’s it. Peanuts. Just peanuts!!!! By the way, in a jar of real peanut butter, the oil rises to the top and you have to stir it. But you only have to stir it once because after you put it in the refrigerator, the oil won’t rise to the top again, it only does that at room temperature. If you see a jar of peanut butter that you don’t have to stir? Don’t buy it!

And finally you’ll be making that PP&J sandwich on–not white bread! Because white bread is nothing but sugar! White flour turns to white sugar in your stomach–I can’t say that enough times–and white sugar is not a real food, it exists nowhere in nature! Buy whole grain bread.

And kids usually like to eat their peanut butter sandwiches with milk; but, again, just like with the juice, I hate to break it to you, but the milk in the supermarket is not real milk! I know that’s hard to accept; but, it’s been boiled and homogenized, the cows come from factory farms, they’re very unhealthy…when you drink their milk you’re getting antibiotics and female hormones added to fatten up the cow, so…. Don’t buy it! Buy Real milk; real milk is RAW MILK–that means milk as it comes from the cow, no processing, no additives. Here it is:

Look for it at your health food store or farmer’s market.

And listen, if you can’t breast-feed your baby, which is essential for your baby’s health, don’t buy “formula” (did you ever even wonder what “formula” is?) Buy raw goat’s milk! Goats milk is very close to our own milk. And don’t be shocked! Haven’t you ever heard of an abandoned kitten being given to a nursing dog and vice-versa? We’re all mammals! Have a look at one such example–a cat adopts a baby squirrel:

One of my clients had a child with eczema. They were feeding him formula. I said, “OMG!!! Go out and buy raw goats milk!” They did, and the baby thrived! The eczema went away. Yes, you can heat it up, but, don’t boil it!!!!! This is supposed to be RAW milk, as it comes from the animal, not interfered with in any way.

You know, I used to drive all the way to Lancaster County, a 90 minute drive, every other week, just to get raw milk! Now, thank heavens, it’s at my local health food store. Real food is worth traveling for!

And, News Flash: you’re going to have to do the same thing for your child’s doctor! You might have to drive for an hour to get to a “holistic” practitioner but it is essential that you do that! Doctors have entirely too much power–at least in this country! If you decide you want to decline a medicine or a “therapy” they want your child to have, you might find out that you have no rights! They can call Child Protective Services and have your child taken away from you and then force the therapy on him; it’s outrageous! Who does your child belong to anyway? Is it yours or is it government property?

So you drive as far as you need to, to get your child into the hands of a safe doctor who will respect your wishes! OK? And the truth is, if you feed your child right, the only reason he’ll need to see a doctor anyway is to have those irritating forms filled out for school; and by the way, don’t fall for the “Well Child Visit”! If your child is Well, he doesn’t need to see a doctor, right? Do YOU see a doctor when you’re not sick? If you do, please have your head examined! A doctor can always find something “wrong”! Did you hear me? It goes to the fundamental defect of mainstream medicine: its all-consuming profit motive–which often compels the doctor to twist and turn facts to suit the needs of his practice and the pharmaceutical industry in general.

For example, according to “How To Determine Your Cardiovascular Health” by Brian Vonk, MD, the normal range of cholesterol levels was lowered 20 points by the very industry that makes the cholesterol-lowering drugs! Shouldn’t that be construed as a conflict of interest? The result is that millions more people get swept up in the “high cholesterol” diagnosis and get to be put on the very drugs… in other words, “Let’s lower the standard for ‘normal’ so we can make more money!” That’s how corrupt medicine-for-profit is! You simply can’t put your health in the hands of people who are making decisions based on money rather than what’s best for you!

Just remember, if you eat right, chances are very good that you won’t get sick, and your doctor has no cure for the common cold or any other virus anyway; so, you’re pretty much on your own whether you like it or not! Get some Vitamin C and a homeopathy Emergency Kit and an Acute Prescribing Book and learn to take care of your child’s health the natural way!

OK, back to food that promotes health.

Sometimes kids like peanut butter crackers, or even cheese and crackers. Well, you know, you can buy Whole Wheat Crackers and turn this junk food snack into something really healthy:

Kids like Tortilla Chips and Salsa but buy whole grain and organic.

Why is that important? Because tortilla chips are made from corn, and most of the corn in the United States nowadays is GMO! (Genetically modified corn–it’s as bad as it sounds!) You’re only safe if you buy organic! I buy my corn only from the Amish farmers, also known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, at the farmer’s market.

Here’s the corn now, this is the exact corn that I buy, and it’s as delicious as it looks! Oh and the tomatoes too! Have you noticed how tasteless the tomatoes are from the supermarket? No wonder your kids don’t like vegetables! Give them some of this stuff from a real farm!

And by the way, the peaches at the farmer’s market? They are to die for!

I think the reason your kids don’t like fruit is because the fruit at the supermarket has to be picked before it’s ripe in order to be shipped all over the world! If it’s picked too soon, it’s not going to taste good! Make the effort to find your nearest farmer’s market! Here’s mine, the Reading Terminal Market at 12th and Arch; Philadelphia, PA:

What do we have here?

This is a canary melon. So delicious! Cut it in half, scoop out the seeds, and drop some vanilla yogurt in the center. The yogurt I buy is below:

Let me show you how to select a melon. If the skin is smooth and dry, it’s under-ripe. Don’t buy it. It should be shiny and waxy. If your child simply must have ice cream, put some vanilla ice cream in the center of the melon, but, make sure the ice cream is organic!

No factory farm ice cream, please! And here we’re introducing the concept of “mitigating damages”. When possible, if your child has to have something “junky”, balance it out with a real food. For example, above, the ice cream is balanced out by the melon which is a whole food. Another example: instead of buying strawberry ice cream, buy organic vanilla ice cream and balance it out with REAL strawberries on the side! And if the strawberries are from the farmer’s market, they will be delicious!

Below I have vanilla yogurt with tangerine slices:

Kids love noodles and pasta. But you can buy whole grain pasta and turn it from a junk food extravaganza into a nutritious meal! I love the wild yam pasta you see below; but Shana loves the brown rice pasta:

Think of all the pasta your kids eat–macaroni and cheese, spaghetti, etc.–it’s all made of white flour meaning they’re eating nothing but a big bowl of sugar! But it doesn’t have to be that way! Buy whole grain pasta and REAL cheese! You can even buy Raw Milk Cheese:

What about Cereal? Kids love cereal. But nutritionally speaking, commercial cereal is a disaster! Look at what you can get at the health food store:

There’s nothing in this cereal but brown rice, that’s the only ingredient! You can also get puffed corn and puffed wheat. And check out the granola bins!

Here is Shana’s favorite hot cereal: Cream of Wheat. There’s only one ingredient in this one–whole wheat. We have to order it over the internet but it’s worth it. www.CreamOfTheWest.com . (Of course, the commercial cream of wheat, though delicious, is nothing but white flour–meaning, a big bowl of white sugar!)

What if your child needs something sweetened? Here it is, raw sugar! No, not “brown sugar”, RAW sugar! It actually has nutrients and fiber! How can you enhance your child’s cereal? Add real fruit and raw milk! Raw milk hasn’t had all the vitamins and enzymes boiled out of it!

OK, look at the time…. I’m not done, but I DO have to cook dinner now–no frozen dinners here, no microwave; so, you will have to excuse me, but, I will be back next month for Part-2. Editor’s note: Part-2 is now ready, click below: